What if, between the original classic Tron and the upcoming Tron 2: Legacy, there were another Tron movie, lost forever in cinematic history? Between the soaring score by Wendy Carlos for the original and Legacy’s Daft Punk music, what would the soundtrack have sounded like? Of course, it would have absolutely had some Journey in it.
Such a movie was rumored, but as with so many projects, leaves behind no evidence. What if it had left a score you could hear? The mysterious “Flynn 1.5” writes to share a free, downloadable soundtrack that answers that question.
And you can argue with an album that begins out with “For the Love of ENCOM”? Indeed. You can stream the full album and download all but the Journey remix. Read the full “backstory” after the jump.
Tron moniker or no, the results are some lovely music, featuring the likes of Tiger Mendoza, Team9, artist and CDM regular reader Lilith The Kitten, and ringleader World Famous Audio Hacker, among others. (Trivia – Tiger Mendoza has his own, Creative Commons-licensed album, and Team9 earned notoriety for a mash-up collaboration with Green Day.)
In late 1998, I was commissioned to compile and produce the soundtrack for a sequel to the film “Tron”. A draft of the story had already been written and early filming had begun (as reported by ZDNet on July 27, 1999). As I understand it, the film was kept in great confidence with the producers as Pixar was still in negotiations with Disney about the responsibilities of the production teams.
“Rise Of The Virals” was a fantastic, but much darker storyline from the original — different from the “Into The Machine” pitch made to Disney by another party. It involved updating the ENCOM universe to a networked system (thanks to the Internet), but also created a darker world — full of programs abandoned as buggy systems (or “mutants”) and abused by corrupt users as viral systems. Furthermore, the story included the death of Flynn and presented questions about the digital life of programs lasting beyond the mortality of their creators — the users.
My task was to compile great underground artists to create a new soundtrack for this darker world of Tron. After the completion of the initial tracklist and first production draft of the soundtrack, it seemed as if negotiations between Pixar and Disney had broken down. Funding for the project was eventually pulled.
I have been most excited to see the announcement of the third film, the new “TR2N” (Tron: Legacy), especially with the involvement of those who will be creating the new soundtrack. It is obvious to me that “Tron: Legacy” takes place after “The Rise Of The Virals” without abandoning its first concept. Perhaps that is why we’ve seen sites like Flynn Lives creep up in anticipation of the new film.
I’ve decided to release the preliminary version of the soundtrack which includes a special remix of Journey’s “Any Way You Want It” produced specifically for “Rise Of The Virals”. Journey provided two songs to the original “Tron”, and their song “Separate Ways” will reportedly be on the “Legacy” soundtrack as well. In any case, since the story of “Rise Of The Virals” takes place between the first “Tron” film and the upcoming “Tron 2: Legacy”, I can’t think of a better title for this material other than “Tron 1.5”. I hope you enjoy the music these artists have put such great work into.
— Flynn 1.5
Tron 1.5: “Rise Of The Virals”
(Digitally Remastered)1. “For The Love Of ENCOM” (4:16) (Team9)
2. “Askew” (5:08) (Solcofn)
3. “Build A Better Lightcycle” (3:24) (Tiger Mendoza)
4. “Rise Of The Virals” (3:37) (World Famous Audio Hacker)
5. “Any Way You Want It” (4:30) (Rhythm Scholar Syntax Error Remix)
6. “Electro City” (5:24) (Lilith The Kitten)
7. “March To Silicon Palace” (3:34) (Future Sound Of Tron)
8. “Lora’s Theme” (4:34) (Team9)
9. “Technojazz” (5:56) (Solcofn)
10. “Love Theme” (4:11) (Tiger Mendoza)
11. “Paranoid Space” (2:45) (Tiger Mendoza)
12. “T128.Flynn.FK@yf” (6:30) (EBNC)
13. “Core Dump” (6:01) (Lilith The Kitten)
14. “Means To An End” (8:00) (Solcofn)
15. “Theme From Tron 105” (1:26) (Carl Walters)The full album is available for free download at http://tron.fm/